Music Education

Listening to music is one of the most primary and prevalent practices in society, with far‐reaching cognitive, emotional, and social effects. A powerful form of non‐verbal communication, music listening is also critical to all other musical activities and essential for quality music education curricula. This chapter explores music listening practices, focusing on music listening pedagogy. It begins by discussing curriculum development and innovative teaching approaches before addressing other topics such as formal and informal learning, and transferrable, interdisciplinary 21st century skills (i.e. communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking). With multi‐faceted bases in music psychology, implications conclude this chapter with recommendations for applying more reflective and engaging music listening pedagogies to promote significant and meaningful music learning.